Sick Day

Rough day today. I went downstairs and joined a 9AM meeting for work… but then had to log off for the rest of the day. I had hopes that I could handle part of the morning, but it became very clear to me that I would only be good for about an hour, before I needed to log off.

The whole day was a terrible blur. I was coughing a lot, and each time I coughed… it felt like a bolt of lightning going down my right leg, due to my back issues.

I had run out of the steroids I was taking, and the entire day was just hours and hours of discomfort. Every cough made things worse, and there was an awful, awful lot of coughing.

I found that lying on my back helped my back feel better… but it provoked more coughing. And didn’t help the pain from my back.

If I sat up in bed, that felt better – and reduced the pain from coughing. But eventually made my back feel a little sore/tired (and made me want to lie down).

The whole day was like this, more or less – me sitting upright in bed, being uncomfortable, trying not to cough.

I didn’t want to watch TV. I didn’t want to play games on my phone. I didn’t want to read. All I could do was just sit and stare off into space, sweating a lot and trying to remain as comfortable as I could.

It was not a restful day. A sick day sure, but not much rest at all.

It was so bad, I ended up calling my pain management doc to see about what could be done. His advice was to lessen my coughing, so that’s more or less what I’ve been doing. Delsum during the day, along with cough drops. And then Nyquil at night, so I could have a few hours of sleep.

Having the flu is bad enough. Having the flu cause back pain with each cough? It’s like my body was trying to beat me up two different ways, at the same time.

[CC photo via Matthew Henry]

Related:
Back Pain and Pain Management
At the Urgent Care
Sick Days and Little Sleep